The following is the first English translation of the entries in a weblog by a Japanese nurse who was dispatched to Rikuzentakata, Iwate, Japan as a member of one of the first disaster medical assistance teams to be sent from Tokyo just several days after the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011. The original weblog is located here <http://blog.goo.ne.jp/flower-wing>.

DISCLAIMER FROM THE TRANSLATOR

DISCLAIMER FROM THE TRANSLATOR: While I speak both English and Japanese fluently, I know nothing about medicine. These are rough translations made through tears (i.e., sometimes while bawling). Please take all medical details in particular with a grain of salt. These translations have not been proofread and will be revised on a later date.

Please note that I am NOT in contact with the original author, who has given general permission for translation in one of her entries.

I would appreciate it if everyone can refrain from posting these entries elsewhere and to share this address <http://jkts-english.blogspot.com> instead, as I will be making revisions to each entry directly (addresses for individual entries may change if I revise their titles).

Thursday, April 7, 2011

10) Tomorrow will be better than today.

The streets have been fixed, and many heavy machinery have finally come into Rikuzentakata. And as the rubble is cleared, many bodies have emerged.

The bodies were carried away on trucks, and I hoped that they will be met by those who have been searching for them soon.

More sadness spreads on the scene.

Beneath the rubble, I heard the ringtone of a cell phone that finally had reception since the system recovered the day before.

It was also very painful when the body of a pregnant woman came out. The reality that people who have nothing wrong are victimized. I no longer understand what it means for people to be alive.

They tell me that there is now a street where their houses full of memories were standing just several days ago.

We were on standby with emergency kits, watching the heavy machinery do their work, just in case there were any survivors. Sadly, there was nothing we could do.

All that came out were sighs and tears, and I felt horribly chagrined.

I talked to a boy who had a fever and a loss of appetite. He showed me a Doraemon book covered in mud.

I asked him what his favorite was of all of Doraemon's tools.

"I used to like the ozashiki tsuribori (indoor fishing mat), but now my favorite is the taimu furoshiki (wrapping cloth of time). I want to wrap up the whole city with the taimu furoshiki and make it go back to how it was before the earthquake."

The earthquake had even traumatized innocent children.

I was given a short break, so I went to see one of the areas where the people were allowed to reenter. An old man is looking very hart for something. He says he is looking for the stamp collection that he had been keeping for sixty years, and his photo albums, too.

People looking for their parents' spirit tablets, people looking for their husbands' bequests, people looking for their pets, people looking for school bags, people looking for their family…

I was afraid that moving the rubble will reveal a dead body, but we all searched together. Disappointingly, we couldn't find it.

I can't bear that it can take away the lives and treasures of people so easily.

I was hit harder by all this than the old man, who actually gave me a word of consolation. Pathetic.

I can't tell people try harder to persevere, or even that we should try harder together. I've already seen them trying so hard, too hard, even, and all I can say is "Let's bear with it" or "Let us overcome."

I can't tell them to try any harder than they already are, and even if they do try harder to persevere, there are just too many things that no one can do anything about.

1 comment:

Please, no one can ask any more of you than what you are already doing, you have proven that you are strong, that you have courage beyond all things, yet you are human and mortal for all that. There is no shame in being weary, there is no shame in showing grief.

Your beautiful Land has earned imperishable honour and merit forever, because of the actions of her emergency teams in this time of black disaster.